


Choices

by Lightning_Strikes_Twice



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: ALL THE ANGST, Angst, Canon Compliant, Post TROS, Rey Needs A Hug, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Spoilers, and to heal, mentions of Ben Solo, this girl has been through so much
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-21
Updated: 2019-12-21
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:54:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21878479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lightning_Strikes_Twice/pseuds/Lightning_Strikes_Twice
Summary: Post Rise of Skywalker: Rey copes with all that she's been through.This piece contains major spoilers for Rise of Skywalker! You have been warned!
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 1
Kudos: 11





	Choices

“I’m Rey”

“Rey who?”

Rey who indeed. The breath she draws slowly echoes in her own head. Time slows, as it does so often now, the Force cradling her in a pocket between time. The old woman notices nothing, but her mind slips elsewhere, floats along the lifelines tying the beings of the universe together. 

Rey who?

The lost girl, no one from nowhere, suddenly the only one to matter, the only one to stop an ancient war started by those she never met, fought by those who would never know of her existence, a journey laid out centuries before the Force knotted and tangled itself into the screaming baby girl left to endless sand and blurry heartbreak. No one. “But not to me.”

She bites back against the pain. 

Of knowing and not knowing all along. Of the unfairness of it all.  _ I did not choose this _ . But in the wars of the fathers, who gets to choose? She is of the Force and the Force demands balance and so balance she will be. 

Though if this is balance, what is the cost? Is she to barter for balance with her own happiness? Is she the asking price? Is balance the eyes that go vacant in the midst of celebration? Empty expressions, far away, that draw concerned glances but no questions. They will not ask. She will not offer. She once told Finn that she thought no one knew her. She does not think that now. She knows it. 

Knows that they will never understand what it took. Will never understand what it felt like. The moments when she was nothing but the Force, the Force entirely within her. “Be with me” and then It was. Then They were. And she was nothing. And everything. She was every single star cluster in the farthest reaches of the galaxy. She was the planets and moons and the stars beyond that. She felt the song of eternity, heard every voice she’d begged to hear, and voices beyond those. Those she knew, those she knew she did not know, those she never knew she did not know. She was what came before and all that would come after. 

And then she wasn’t.

Then she was slowly spooled back by a single thread, a dawning realization. A light rekindled in a body she’d forgotten was her own.  _ I am a being. I have a name. I’m Rey. _ Drawn back and back and back into herself, the finite, seemingly insignificant body that stirred in the arms of a lone star stuttering out, as she blinked back to life. 

No, they will never know that pain. Being severed from body is nothing. You simply leave it. She cannot bring herself to speak of the pain that came after. The gaping hole ripped open at the core of her being, warmth leached from a deep well, a glowing cord hacked and splintered, gutted of the life and light that coursed back and forth along it. Pain so deep and crippling she could not bring herself to scream. A heartbeat twin beside hers snuffed out, the absence of it so jarring she thinks her own heart stumbled, considered going still once more to join it. She never recognized it beat separate hers, the balance so natural. She was not conscious of its rhythm until she missed it; the silence deafening within her chest. The violence of it still leaves her gasping, months later, still grips her with icy hands and rips her from dreamless sleep. They do not know that she breathes through tears in the dark, begging the now silent voices beyond for the ache within her to have been a dream. 

Dying was easy. Living with this pain is not. 

They do not ask. She does not tell them. Diads are not supposed to exist on separate sides of the Force. She knows now that Light and Dark are not separate, merely different avenues on the side of the sentient. One half should not remain living while the other walks among the passed. It says so in the Old Texts. But she does not need old languages to tell her. She feels it in every lone beat of her stunned heart. A heart that with every beat waits for the echo.

She tells them she cannot talk about what she witnessed. It is a truth within a lie. She does not tell them she died. She does not tell them that the other half of the Force in her veins exists beyond a veil she cannot cross. His voice lost with the rest of them. Faded and gone. 

Rey who?

Is this who she now is? Protector and Last Jedi. Destroyer of the Sith and Bearer of Balance. Heir of a prophecy meant for others, a fate passed on by those who couldn’t, wouldn’t fulfill the demands of the Force. Is she yet another in a line whose choice was made for them?

All she ever wanted was a name. She was given a name. She does not want this name. 

She does not want this name. Or this destiny. This fate. This title. She does not want to hold Balance between her hands alone. It feels wrong. It’s all so wrong. 

She turns to the twin suns sinking low beyond the ever shifting dunes. Destined to blaze in tandem until they burn out together. Rise and set, and rise again. One sun will not burn without the other. The chasm within her threatens to widen and swallow her whole. The suns did not choose to be suns, but they at least get to do it together. 

She did not choose to be alone. 

She is tired of not choosing. 

Rey who?

“Skywalker.”

At least this one thing, she can choose. 

**Author's Note:**

> Still not sure how I feel about how this movie went, but I'm trying to write through my feelings. Mostly I'm just very sad. If you need to vent, I'm @lightning-strikes-twice on tumblr. Please no Reylo hate! We're better than that.


End file.
